FAQs

Article Summary by Steve Maack Strickland, James (2004). Just the FAQ’s: an alternative to teaching the research paper. //English Journal//, 94 (1) 23-28.

James Strickland begins his article with an anecdote about trying to teach the standard research paper and having two students who researched because they really enjoyed their topics. But when asked what their theses were, they had no satisfactory answer. These students were researching out of a fascination with the inquiry process and not with any particular interest in completing their research projects as directed by their teacher.

Additionally, Strickland wants to address the reality of how technology is transforming the research process. Information from electronic sources is easily available, but it needs to be evaluated more carefully than more traditional research from books and periodicals. This makes the process of developing a persuasive argument based upon internet research daunting and overly complicated.

Strickland feels that the “research paper” as taught in high school is not an authentic assignment and that it is merely superficial preparation for college research assignments that students may or may not do. They take too long to complete, they are difficult to grade, and the students’ interest in inquiry is lost in the process.

Ultimately, Strickland’s goal is to develop a student research project that moves away from “thesis-driven” persuasive writing and more toward inquiry-based research for the sake of discovery and information. He feels that instruction in persuasive writing should be a series of separate, shorter assignments “divorced” from the research process (p. 23).

Strickland’s solution for the research portion of the project is to have students develop their own FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) page as a result of their inquiry into a topic. Strickland spends some time discussing how FAQ pages work for those readers who might not know. Here’s a sample from the website of the American Red Cross to show how an FAQ works:

http://www.redcross.org/faq/

Strickland’s FAQ research project asks students to organize all the information they find about their research topic into answers to questions the students develop themselves. The questions are used as an organizing tool with questions about a particular aspect of the topic grouped and ordered in a reasonable way to help the reader find useful information, somewhat like a table of contents. Students also must, of course, provide a list of works cited.

Strickland writes, unconvincingly in my opinion, about how the FAQ project helps students prevent plagiarism. But his explanation of how he helps students through sources and citation seems like the same kind of plagiarism prevention instruction that any teacher working with student research should do.

For an extension exercise, Strickland has students simplify or adapt their FAQ pages for different types of audiences—for young children or a more specialized audience for instance.

This article presents an adaptable, inquiry-based approach to research that could be used in just about any discipline.